Google acquires Carnegie Mellon's anti-fraud tool

PITTSBURGH: Google is acquiring a Carnegie Mellon University spin-off that lets users help digitize books as they register at Web sites or buy things online.

Google Inc. and the Pittsburgh university announced Wednesday that Google has acquired ReCAPTCHA, a tool meant to cut down on spam and fraud. The tool offers simple distorted word puzzles that users fill out to prove they are human, rather than spammers or others automating sign-up.

Unlike other word puzzles, however, the text comes from actual books, letting the system create a digitized version in the process.

The tool was developed by Carnegie Mellon computer science professor Luis von Ahn, who started the ReCAPTCHA company in 2008.